d dog, notwithstanding," said little Jack, taking Dingo's great
head in his small hands.

"Yes. I do not say no," replied Cousin Benedict. "But what do you want?
This devil of an animal has not realized the hopes I conceived on
meeting it."

"Ah! my goodness!" cried Mrs. Weldon, "did you, then, hope to be able
to classify it in the order of the dipters or the hymenopters?"

"No," replied Cousin Benedict, seriously. "But is it not true that this
Dingo, though it be of the New Zealand race, was picked up on the
western coast of Africa?"

"Nothing is more true," replied Mrs. Weldon, "and Tom had often heard
the captain of the 'Waldeck' say so."

"Well, I had thought--I had hoped--that this dog would have brought
away some specimens of hemipteras peculiar to the African fauna."

"Merciful heavens!" cried Mrs. Weldon.

"And that perhaps," added Cousin Benedict, "some penetrating or
irritating flea--of a new species----"

"Do you understand, Dingo?" said Captain Hull. "Do you understand, my
dog? You have failed in all your duties!"

"But I have examined it well," added the entomologist, with an accent
of deep regret. "I have not been able to find a single insect."

"Which you would have immediately and mercilessly put to death, I
hope!" cried Captain Hull.

"Sir," replied Cousin Benedict, dryly, "learn that Sir John Franklin
made a scruple of killing the smallest insect, be it a mosquito, whose
attacks are otherwise formidable as those of a flea; and meanwhile you
will not hesitate to allow, that Sir John Franklin was a seaman who was
as good as the next."

"Surely," said Captain Hull, bowing.

"And one day, after being frightfully devoured by a dipter, he blew and
sent it away, saying to it, without even using _thou_ or _thee_: 'Go!
the world is large enough for you and for me!'"

"Ah!" ejaculated Captain Hull.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Mr. Benedict," retorted Captain Hull, "another had said that
long before Sir John Franklin."

"Another?"

"Yes; and that other was Uncle Toby."

"An entomologist?" asked Cousin Benedict, quickly.

"No! Sterne's Uncle Toby, and that worthy uncle pronounced precisely
the same words, while setting free a mosquito that annoyed him, but
which he thought himself at liberty to _thee_ and _thou_: 'Go, poor
devil,' he said to it, 'the world is large enough to contain us, thee
and me!'"

"An honest man, that Uncle Toby!" replied Cousin Benedict. "Is he dead?"

"I believe so, in